in this half hour ever wonder how dogs manage to evolve from wild carnivores to the loveable omnivore that's that they are today new research suggests that their evolution has a lot to do with the food you eat clintonite speaking science and as republicans continue their efforts to revive the twenty sixteen election it's becoming increasingly clear that there's only one way to stop this is salt on our democracy i'll tell you what it is and i'd still take. automatic to your take my take it live our phone lines are now open so if you want to share an opinion make a comment ask question live on the air give us a call to a to not zero four twenty one thirty four our first caller the night andrea in philadelphia pennsylvania andrea. i have a question for your gas and for many people that are again the right of women to happen abortion if they need to. and the question is it seems like there is

a lot of concern about the unborn person or child or whatever you want to call it from conception to birth. but what happens to the right of that child if the parents do not have health insurance center on able to get it what happens to that child who pays for its health care once it's born. what what do the conservatives how do they answer to that. thank you for the call and for raising the issue i think that we know the answer i'm assuming that's a rhetorical question. paul laid it out in the in the clip that we had from the set up for the debate with austin and that was you know in the republican debates ron paul's he didn't say let the letter let the guy die there's somebody in the audience shouted that out but it was implicit. we're fetishizing.

citizens at the same time that we're ignoring living children and that's a real tragedy means zoran coatesville pennsylvania he's on thanks for watching. thanks and really. got to watch you for a while and you've got my liberal being liberal again once again i'm one of those people. to get one for medicaid i would be cripple i had happened to be lucky enough. to have double hip replacement and had a couple other problems that it wasn't for medicaid i i. because it was going through a lot of other problems i really thank you or. hear your insight on. we because there are questions or energy just want to make that. statement and get out that you brought up about medicaid and medicare great thanks

i'll continue the fight continue the good fight marty marty knew it in washington d.c. . yes. tom in your conversation with mr peterson you really came across like a soviet commissar really you know promising everything from cradle to grave benefits that's what canada does and you know the last time i looked canada wasn't part of the soviet union and not to say that the so unions even the seven anymore but you know i don't think the hard martin i get you i get your drift and i appreciate your calling but i'm not buying it it's not socialism in the old union of soviet socialist republics. context it's democratic socialism and i will own that work i tell ya i don't you know i don't consider myself

a democrat or republican i consider myself a democratic socialist in the way that norway and sweden and denmark and finland and germany and france call themselves democratic republic democratic socialist countries and i think what that means is that you have the public sector things that we all work on together our education including college is free is free and fully available to everybody healthcare is free and fully a bill available to everybody the commons essentially roads free and fully available to everybody and then the things in than private industry is private industry and stay out of it other than making sure that it doesn't kill people steven chantel the virginian's people to. i just wanted to ask a question of your guest has he ever been unemployed. has he ever been on able to do for himself and if he has possibly ask other people

to do the same thing and that way is just right steve thanks for the call it's it is you know what you're highlighting is. i don't want to personalize it to austin i don't know austin story and you know he's been on the show a number of times i think he's a decent fellow. i think that there is built into this libertarian worldview this this this idealistic belief that comes out of iran's writings and and. this whole notion that has been around america frankly for a long long before iran that it's survival of the fittest it's the thing that darwin's cousin sir francis galton i think it was. promoted as an economist in the nineteenth century and it was the world the dickens wrote about charles dickens father was thrown into debtor's prison i mean it was just that was

england of that time and this idea that the only the only the rich should survive only you know that they're the god's chosen electors gregory and sherman oaks california gregory thanks for calling. hello tom. this year is the one hundredth anniversary of two of the crowning achievements of the century ago progress. one hundred years ago on february fourth on february fourth the sixteenth amendment was passed which provided for the progressive income tax and one hundred years before april fourth or april third these seven. amendment was passed providing for the direct election of u.s. senators and it's a shame that the current year is to be called more the regress. but marking these two gifts of the past the products of our great grandparents generation i think we

should at least eighty four equally large scale progressive accomplishments in the area of taxation and in the area of electoral politics. we can't do it by constitutional amendment almost for sure for now but don't be surprised actually i wouldn't give up on that gregory and there's a couple of reasons for that for example to move to a man movement it's really taking off if you get a move to amend or you can see that and and there have been several constitutional amendments the one that i remember happened you know in my lifetime was the one to drop the voting age to eighteen. from my recollection as it was introduced in march and was ratified by the three quarter state whatever whatever however many that was in whatever state that was in august or september me was less than a year from dropping the thing on the floor of the senate the house to it becoming part of our constitution an actual amendment to our constitution so i wouldn't give up on. here and apparently dropped off the line i. know you are starting

a thought there and you're up to the but still i wouldn't give up and thank you for the call mohammad trot of canada a moment. i just wonder about your last guest. saying that you shouldn't pay taxes for my mother who. i like to ask him also why should we taxpayers pay for the for the police and why should taxpayers pay for schools so if he went out from all those services then maybe he shouldn't pay taxes otherwise he should pay taxes thank you. quite. well said and thank you for the call i don't disagree with you but i will tell you this and i can't speak to austin again he's not here to defend himself and i'm not going to either represent him or knock him when he's not here defense but generally speaking most libertarians will tell you that they think that police functions court

functions and army functions are that's the beginning and end of the commons as the only thing that we should all be paying for collectively and so therefore the fire department. fire protection you should pay for it should be privately provided roads they should all be toll roads you want to should be privately provided education mentioned schools you want to go to school it should be privately provided in all of those private providing these things that we think of as the commons in the ben franklin the guy who founded the post office article one section of the constitution talks about. congress can authorize money for roads for the postal service and frankly the commons. they would tell you that all of those things should be profit opportunities for wealthy individuals or corporations valorie in willingboro new jersey. yes i was coming because i agree with you that people in the wall street and the

bankers they should have gone to prison and the president saying how come they didn't go to. how to. create. thank you for the call i got and i agree with you john in lodi california. john. just a little country police book so i really don't know too much about law but then my research. are you there yeah i was located you know what it is kaffir fund is what fund captain do you know what caliber phones are no i don't sorry well there's a difference between a fiscal budget and a hole in the rest of the income that. our government brings in. literally shone a third of what they actually bring in these guys have invested. trillions of dollars in all over the world. there's clonaid of money out there to pay for

everything they could pay off the debt tomorrow john i don't i don't disagree with you in that conceptually and thanks for the for the call on that america is an incredibly rich nation and there is a lot of money around richard in bellflower california hey richard a tom thank you for taking my call tom a few weeks back you talked about the transactions tax that tax the securities transaction exchange rice tax. ok i'm reading an article right now from the l.a. times eleven european countries have received the green light tuesday to plan a financial transaction tax that could generate billions of dollars in revenue for cash strapped go for government on the on the order of fifty billion dollars you're absolutely right richard thanks for calling and bringing that up and not only will that raise revenue but as they pointed out you can read in that l a times or any other article big government thinks that this is also going to diminish risky

behavior by banks toure's that's it for your take my take alive thanks for all your calls and if we didn't get your calls tonight try is back next week. coming up all across america republicans are working to hard to corrupt our democracy and to rig the twenty sixteen election how could reforming the american voting process help to put integrity back into our democracy.

let me let me i want to wouldn't let me ask you a question from. here on this network is what we're having a debate we have a nice sound. familiar to you is this right it's a bad thing never again you're in a situation where b. and i don't agree to talk about your name and we. will go to the. out of sight but still on our minds radiation from the still exceeds the norm let's try to live smarter with smartphones you never know what some people are hiding things can't be sure to you prove delta the molecular level learned that what the doctor ordered is often based on secrets under our skin let us shine the light on a kid in a world. we've got the future coverage. it's

thursday so let's get geeky on man's best friend ever wonder why your dog will inhale just about any kind of food you feed it or wild likes human food so much it will jump at the kitchen table to get it well it turns out a dog's willingness to devour traditionally human foods instead of biting your arm off helps to explain how its ancestors evolved from wild wolves to domesticated dogs a group of researchers in sweden compared the genes of wolves and dogs and found that a big difference between the two is dog's ability to easily digest starchy foods at some point during the transition from wild carnivores to cute and cuddly snuggle lovers dogs learn to watch or at least live off typical staples of the human diet like wheat rice barley corn and potatoes the sort of transition from meat lover to grain lover also occurred to us in the history of humans as we emerge from the wild

in invented agriculture the agricultural revolution ten thousand years ago we too settled into diets that were rich in grains erik's axles and one of the researchers in the study in a geneticist at sweden's upsilon university told the washington post that quote i think it's a striking case of co-evolution the fact that we shared a similar environment in the last ten thousand years caused a similar adaptation in the big change in the environment was the development of agriculture actual since findings published in the journal nature support the often argued hypothesis that dogs evolved from wolves who found new sources of food in the trash on the outskirts of human settlements after a while eating our food these wild wolves began to tolerate contact with us and were eventually brought into households for protection and work and ultimately companionship. human tolerant and was fully possibly fully domesticated canids

ancestors of today's domesticated dogs may have existed as many as thirty three thousand years ago and archaeological remains show dogs and humans sharing the same graves eleven thousand years ago which corresponds with the dawn of agriculture the next logical question is. when did dogs is did dogs to domesticate themselves or did humans have a role in the process the evidence of natural selection and the amount and efficiency of key digestive enzymes and dogs supports the notion the dogs may have actually domesticated themselves in order to be able to eat the leftover food of garbage from human settlements essentially under the theory of natural selection dogs were selected you know in through this process by scavenging to scavenge off the food scraps that we leave behind so the next time you give fido a doggie biscuit filled with wheat and rice be grateful that that cute little pop is munching on bad and not you and.

just. it's the good the bad and the very very proto tory asli ugly the good ireland irish and u.k. if government officials signed an agreement today to build some of the world's largest wind turbines on the emerald isles the turbines which will be more than six hundred feet tall will transfer enough energy to the u.k. to power millions of homes by twenty seventeen the united kingdom is already one of the biggest wind energy producers in the world with wind turbines dotting the u.k. countryside and many offshore in the north sea u.k. and ireland realize that wind is a clean and green form of energy to that of washington those who feel the same way the bad senator kay hagan of the u.k. is pushing for when energy. hagan a democrat from north carolina is urging president obama to approve construction of the keystone x.l.

pipeline arguing that it will create jobs and provide energy security first the jobs in the pipeline would create would only be temporary and second the majority of oil from the pipeline we exported and finally building the pipeline means continuing our nation's toxic addiction to fossil fuels that are destroying our environment and causing climate change senator hagan should be pushing for clean jobs and the clean energy industry. and the very very ugly senator ron johnson johnson was one of the republican senators who attacked secretary of state hillary clinton yesterday during her testimony on the man ghazi terror attacks question got so heated that clinton responded very emotional and long after the hearing johnson told multiple news outlets the clinton and the outburst in order to avoid the questions that johnson isn't the only one going after hill new york post owned by rupert murdoch printed a cover saying no wonder bill's afraid of hillary referring to the same show of

emotion it's clear that republicans and the conservative media are unleashing sexist attacks on hillary clinton you know as score political points and that it's very clear. in the beginning there were big states and little states virginia and delaware pennsylvania and rhode island georgia and new hampshire the little states wanted to make sure that their voices weren't drowned out by the big states. and they want to make sure that they could be marginalized or pushed out of the way altogether and that they could see themselves as equal parts of the american government so the framers of the constitution put protections for the small states into that document

of the constitution given the small states a little bit more say in fact a little bit more say actually on a per capita basis than the big states. one was that each one of those protections was that each state even if it was so small it only had one member of the house of representatives would get two full senators and the second was that each small state would also get an additional two votes representing those two senators in the electoral college that determines who is our president for most of our national history the minority never abuse these privileges the small states though we have recently seen a series of abuses of the senate filibuster by the conservative majority but the electoral college wasn't created just to protect the minority it was also just like the second amendment put in place in part to protect the institution of slavery in the southern states the political problem that the slave states were facing when the constitution was written was there were very few white males the leader of legal voters of the day living in those states there were lots of slaves in those

states but they weren't allowed to vote so if the president was elected by the national popular vote which james madison and originally argued for very few votes would be coming out of slave states to elect the president the united states. and the southern slave owners who lived in constant fear not only of their own slaves but also that some northerner president might try to undo slavery. actually had a legitimate fear in this this is what lincoln actually did so the slave states and the small states got together with the electoral college you know got that this was the gift they got out of congress or out of the constitutional convention to select the president giving those extra votes to them that they would have lacked if it was just a national popular vote all of which brings us to today. now the republican party has been hijacked by the billionaire class a very small one percent or one one hundredth of one percent sliver of our nation

have taken unprecedented steps to abuse the electoral college in the first election after the supreme court's citizens united decision hundreds of millions of dollars in outside spending by oligarchy like the koch brothers and sheldon adelson put republicans in control of the traditionally blue states that they targeted including pennsylvania wisconsin ohio and michigan once they got charge of those state legislatures and the governors' offices the republicans gerrymandered the congressional districts to increase the number of safe republican seats and fracture this a safe democratic seats that's one reason why house democratic candidates received more than a million votes more than house republican candidates around the nation last november it republicans still hold a majority in the house of representatives and republicans are now using these gerrymandered states to push their bold a step yet to read the next presidential election. looks like it's going to happen first in virginia instead of

a winner take all system or whoever wins the state wins the states vote for president republicans want virginia's electoral college votes to be doled out based on which presidential candidate wins each congressional district with an extra two votes going to the states popular vote winner republicans in wisconsin ohio pennsylvania and michigan are considering similar changes and r. and c. chair reince priebus recently threw his support behind the idea just how big of an advantage will republicans get thanks to these kind of changes consider this president obama swept the six battleground states florida michigan ohio pennsylvania virginia and wisconsin in the last election since the winner take all system president got one hundred sixty electoral college votes and romney got zero . but had this new scheme been in place before the last election then the president would have only gotten forty seven electoral college votes while mitt romney would

have won those states with fifty nine votes even though he got trounced in the popular vote in every single one of those states and had all the states in the nation made these changes that republicans are proposing then today mitt romney would be our president even though he lost the national vote by millions. billionaires and the republicans that they own know that there are a minority in america in america there are hard right bigotry towards gays and women is turned off young voters there's enough phobia mistrust of not non whites have turned off a growing minority electorate and reaganomics has been exposed as a scam so today the majority of us have to do something before the billionaires take over completely the best way to do this is to embrace more democracy. when it comes to the electoral college we need to scrap it all together republicans in these states mentioned earlier are trying to bring the electoral college the so

they can steal future presidential elections the electoral college should be replaced with more democracy a national popular vote model that elects our president based on which candidate actually got the most votes nationwide plain and simple. nine states already past national popular vote laws so their electors will vote for whichever candidate wins the national popular vote even if the candidate lost the state's electoral college vote those nine states that have passed national popular vote laws including california maryland and illinois account for one hundred thirty two electoral votes among them but half of the two hundred seventy needed in the electoral college to win the white house so if this trend continues and enough states sign up to bring their combined electoral college votes to two hundred seventy and the electoral college which republicans are currently trying to rig guys just like that. this should be the game plan moving forward average working people in america are the

majority not the billionaires in the republican toadies and it's up to us to aggressively push back against this corrupt conservative minority is trying to rig the game go to national popular vote dot com. and that's the way it is tonight thursday january twenty fourth two thousand and thirteen for more information in the stories we covered visit our web sites at tom hartman dot com free speech dot org dot com and if you missed any of the night's show you can now watch it h.d. on hulu at hulu dot com slash the big picture also check out our two youtube channel is there a link to thom hartmann dot com also a town are without controversy all the different ways you can send us your feedback and don't forget democracy begins with you it's not a spectator sport it requires participation if you don't like things participate occupy something like occupy the democratic party get out there and get active take your it suitable.

here's mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that we americans call a dollar. i'm sorry i'm just

a guy who cares an awful lot of money sorry are a fool you know what that is my self but i don't want to give us a defeat terrorism the only liberal the christian school can secure beliefs about it's. going to school we're going to distract us from what you and i should care about because there are profit driven industry that sells us sensationalistic garbage because of breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break that. emissions free grinning tastes three years for charges free arrangement free. three stooges free.